Sunday, December 21, 2014

On the
year-end episode of the video game TV show Good Game the presenters Bajo and particularly Hex raved about a game called
‘Valiant Hearts’. They considered the game to be a great way to learn about the
events and experiences of World War I, while carrying some definite emotional
impact. Having played the game myself recently I would say that they were spot
on.

‘Valiant
Hearts – The Great War’ is primarily a two-dimensional puzzle game, with some
simple action sequences, set mainly in France and Germany during World War I.
You alternate between four characters – with one helpful dog – though the
gameplay is fairly similar for each of them. The main two characters are Emile,
a soldier in the French army, and Freddie, an American volunteer, and you also
play as Karl, Emile’s German son in law, and Anna, a Belgian nurse. The puzzles
mostly involve lifting things, moving things, digging for things, and the like,
though the sequence in which you acquire things is important. As far as puzzles
go these are not as elegant as those in ‘Portal 2’, but they are generally
clever and enjoyable.

The game was
inspired by a series of letters written during the war, and these really
strengthen the story behind the game. For most of the people alive today,
including me, there is less connection to what people experienced during World
War I than World War II or even the Vietnam War. ANZAC Day in Australia, as
important as it is, is generally more about symbolism than in bringing out
those experiences (and at worst reduces into cliché). Though stylized, ‘Valiant
Hearts’ made me feel closer than I ever had to ‘experiencing’ the Great War,
making a concerted effort to capture the details of life during wartime.
Pop-ups provide further information about important battles and other events,
features of wartime such as trenches and barbed wire, and items that had
particular significance for the era. IGN reviewer Daniel Krupa somewhat
accurately, though disparagingly, referred
to these as ‘Encarta ’95-style footnotes’, and found them ‘too insistent and a
bit irritating’. Many commenters took him to task for this, and I agree
that their intrusion is fairly minimal; the player can skip all of these if
they wish.

For my
reviews of ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘The Wolf Among Us’ I suggested that they
could be thought of less
as games and more of as a new form of graphic storytelling. ‘Valiant Hearts’
too, in style and its emphasis on story, seems like a comic strip in which you
are a more active participant in the story-telling. It certainly uses the iconographic
techniques of comic strips, with pictures often substituting for spoken
language. However I don’t want to take the analogy too far, and suggest that this
is a new medium that sits outside the two categories. People would definitely
call it a game; in its use of ‘closure’
(the gaps between successive images) it is still a fair distance away from sequential art. I still
could see these types of games starting to substitute for comic books and
strips in the future though.With my leaden gaming fingers I like these ‘one-button’
games, and unlike games where I fight for seemingly hours against tough bosses I
am only a peek at a ‘walkthrough’ away from being unstuck. There is about ten
hours of gameplay here, which is a good length for a game of this type. Regardless
I found myself immersed in this game from pretty much start to finish, and it
is a great way for anyone to discover more about this era of history. P.S. That is my last post for 2014, having reached my goal of 120 posts for the year. See you in 2015!

Monday, December 15, 2014

‘Daria’, for
those who have never seen it, was an animated series for MTV about ‘Daria Morgendorffer, a smart,
acerbic, and somewhat misanthropic teenage girl’ (Wikipedia). Because of its cynical, ‘whatever’ attitude I
remembered it as being around in the early to mid-1990s, but actually it did
not debut until 1997, and ran until 2002. Although something I did not know
before today: the character of Daria actually debuted earlier in ‘Beavis
and Butt-Head’.The first
few episodes are a bit patchy, but from the midpoint of the first season the
quality picks up. This is despite many of the characters being primarily one-note
jokes. Kevin the quarterback, and his girlfriend Brittany the cheerleader, are
empty-headed. Quinn, Daria’s pretty, popular, fashion-conscious sister, is shallow.
Charles, otherwise known as ‘Upchuck’ is a flirtatious creep. Daria’s mother is
a workaholic; her father overreacts over things he doesn’t understand. Daria
and her best friend Jane come out with the smartest lines, though even that
becomes their defining characteristic. You can pretty much guess how any given
character is going to react in any given situation. Though one thing that struck
me watching it again years later – none of the high-schoolers are particularly
vicious. Daria may be unpopular, but she is rarely bullied.

Apart from
Daria, Jane, and Jane’s brother Trent, the character that I enjoy most is
actually Quinn’s ‘friend’ and Fashion Club President Sandi Griffin. Her voice,
done by Janie Mertz, is the perfect expression of manipulation and contempt. Her
defining characteristic is her snootiness, but her put-downs can be clever and
dry, as when she tortures Fashion Club Vice President Quinn in ‘Too Cute’:

Quinn - It's cute.

Brooke - Just
cute?

Sandi - Quinn has
very high nose standards.

Quinn - I said it
was cute!

Sandi - Oh, like
you meant it. "Oh, it's cute."

Quinn - Well, at
least I thought about it. I didn't just say it was cute without thinking.

Sandi - Excuse me?
Are you saying we're shallow?

Brooke - Wait, you
guys were just saying it was cute?

Sandi - No,
Quinn's just so deep, she thinks we would say something's cute when it's not
cute, which we wouldn't.

Tiffany - No way.

Sandi - Example: I
would never tell Quinn that she looks cute in that thing she always wears.

Quinn - I don't
have a "thing" that I always wear.

Sandi - If you say
so.

Quinn - I have
lots of things which I wear at different times, far apart in time.

Sandi - As you
wish.

And in this
exchange:

Quinn - I'm really
mad at you guys.

Sandi - Oh? Why is
that?

Quinn - Because
you all went to get nose jobs without me!

Sandi - But you would never get a nose job. You're not that shallow.

Quinn - How do you
know?

Sandi - Because a
really deep person like you has too many important things on her mind, like the
news or something, to pay attention to her appearance.

Quinn - That's not
true.

Sandi - But Quinn,
what else could possibly account for your showing up at school in such a dated
outfit?

Quinn - But you
helped me buy this outfit!

Sandi - That was
days ago. Weeks, if memory serves. Of course, so much time has passed, I could
be wrong.

If Quinn
had said that last line she would probably stop after the first sentence, with the
point that Quinn is shallow having been re-made. But Sandi doesn’t let it go,
taking three witty stabs in quick succession at Quinn, and leaving her no room
for a comeback. And in her comment that Quinn probably has the ‘news or
something’ on her mind, which of course Sandi would know that Quinn wouldn’t,
she almost seems to be making fun of the entire clique that she is in charge
of. That is, while Quinn throws herself wholeheartedly into being part of the
Fashion Club, Sandi can see the absurdity behind its existence and the
shallowness of her followers.

Anyway as a
satire, ‘Daria’ is not quite among the very best, but it’s still enjoyable years later. A
lot of the coolest women I have met in my adult life remind me of Daria in some way.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

December (and January next year) is the
time to comb through the ‘Best Of’ lists, and do some housecleaning on my
listening.No. 5 Killer
Bangs – Honeyblood

Two girls. Rough guitars.
Shouting/singing in unison. Band name that’s both sweet and dangerous. Song
with ‘bangs’ in the title. Moody black and white album cover. Imagining
standing in the back of a dimly lit bar. It’s the sound of the mid-‘90s, like a
dingier Veruca Salt. And then the tempo changes, and you think ‘hang on, where’s
this going?’ … But then the same tune kicks in … Two girls. Rough guitars.
Shouting/singing together about bangs again. It's fun - it doesn't need to be anything else. Have another beer bottle.

For a band not shy on production, it is
remarkable how much of the TV On The Radio sound seems to centre on singer Tunde
Adebimpe. Dave Sitek’s production really supports Adebimpe’s vocals as much as,
if not more than, the other way around. Drifting off to sleep, I pictured
representing the relationship like this:

The sound is coming in from around
Tunde, and lifting it up to where it needs to go. Make sense? I tried to find a
few more ‘whoosh’ lines in Paint to make it clearer …

A soft tune, like rain on the petals on
a flower. Is it the finger-strumming guitar that is the rain though, or is it
the sweet vocal, or is that the flower? Since the vocal comes in second I’m
going to go with the guitar is causing the vocal to bloom. Incidentally, Gulp
includes the bass player from Super Furry Animals, but since pre-press citing a
bass player probably wouldn’t get you very far, I think we can say Gulp have
stood up on their own merits.

Jamie T’s put-on chav London accent has
typically put me off closely listening to his stuff, and the thought of that almost
put me off listening to his well-received latest album. Has all of his stuff
been this good? ‘Turn On The Light’ has a decent Alex Turner/Mike Skinner rap
for the verses, but it’s the gentle chorus, using my well-loved G/D/Em/C chord
progression, that makes this my favourite track on the album.

Guitar riff reminds me of a truck
travelling down a highway, a tall man with a broad chest and blond quiff,
singing above his love, who he pictures in flannel shirt and cut-off jeans. But
the song is not about love at all, which I didn’t realise until a review
pointed it out to me: ‘If I’m your enemy/ Then I’m keen to be your enemy’. Also
Merchandise front man Carson
Cox is not like the guy I imagined. Great slice of pop/country-tinged rock
though.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

When I first
saw the cover of Roz Chast’s ‘Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?’ on Best
Comics/Graphic Novels Of 2014 lists, I thought that it looked like the type of
graphic novel that literary critics would like. As the cover itself shows, it
is an autobiographical tale about the sometimes difficult relationship the
author has/had with her elderly parents, which seemed to me familiar territory
for ‘literary’ graphic novels. Though when I thought about it later the only
other major graphic novel that I could think of which fit that description was art
spiegelman’s ‘Maus’, so perhaps the familiar feeling was a collection of things,
such as recently having seen a rough drawing style in Kate Beaton’s ‘Hark! A Vagrant!’In any case
my main point here is that certain types of graphic novels have a better chance
of being acclaimed in literary circles than others. I don’t want to make a
target of ‘Can’t We Talk About … ?’ here, because it’s a good read, and quite
innovative in how it lays out its story. But I can’t imagine good genre comics
like ‘Saga’ or ‘Hawkeye’ being on the National Book Award shortlist. Why?
Because they’re superhero/fantasy stuff.This is of
course true of other mediums: it has often been pointed out that
science-fiction and fantasy films have a tough time winning the major awards at
the Oscars. And as Michael Chabon pointed out in his introduction to ‘McSweeney’s
Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales’ most ‘literary’ short fiction fits into
the genre of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory
story". So even if genre comics can gain ‘respectability’ they may still be
only seen as on the same level as sci-fi films and horror novels. That doesn’t
mean that ‘taste-makers’ should not be considering their merits though.Anyway, as I said, Roz Chast’s graphic novel is
a good read: what is not immediately obvious from the cover is that it’s about
the last days of her parents, who died around five to ten years ago. It’s
unavoidably a bit morbid, but also quite humourous, and like the best graphic
novels would lose something if it was told in any other medium. There are a
couple of comics this year that I enjoyed slightly more, but if someone said
this was their ‘best’ for 2014 I wouldn’t argue too much.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

I have been
reading Marvel’s ‘Avengers’ comics for 26 years, which apart from following my
football team, is probably the longest continuous stretch of time that I have
done anything.I once heard
Avengers’ writer Brian Michael Bendis say at a convention just after he had
read through the whole series that there are a lot of bad Avengers comics … but
there are also a lot of good comics. These are what I personally think are the
good ones.In a sense I
tipped my hand as to which stories I thought mattered when I did my ‘pseudo-critical’ history of the
Avengers. But that
was seven years ago now and there has been some notable stories since then.So across
five posts spanning each of the Avengers’ five decades of publication, here are
what I think are the best Avengers stories.Part One (1963-1973) was here.Part Two (1974-1983) was here.Part Three (1984-1993) was here.Part Four (1994-2003) was here.New Avengers #1-6 – ‘Breakout’Writer: Brian Michael Bendis,
Penciller: David FinchLine-up: Captain America, Iron Man,
Spider-Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman (sort of), SentryMain villains: Sauron, Electro,
Purple Man, Carnage, Mister Hyde, Jigsaw, and many moreOther main characters: Daredevil,
Foggy Nelson, the other Black WidowReview: Shaking
Through

Brian Michael Bendis wrote more
‘Avengers’ issues than any other writer, and launched five different Avengers
series. I found that his best story arcs for each series tended to be the first
ones, as he would establish a distinct tone for a series that seemed to either wear
after about eight issues, or get caught up in a company-wide crossover.

Aside from its quality the first arc
of ‘New Avengers’ is one of the most important ‘Avengers’ stories ever, even
more so than the ‘Avengers Disassembled’ arc that preceded it. After ripping
apart the old team in ‘Disassembled’ Bendis re-creates the roster around
marquee Marvel characters Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine,
along with Luke Cage, Spider-Woman (sort of), and well… the Sentry (who I don’t
mind, but he’s the odd member out here). From that point on the Avengers became
Marvel’s most successful franchise, built around the company’s flagship heroes.

The story itself, in which bunches of
villains are broken out of the superhuman prison the Vault and a new team of
heroes assembles to stop them, was quite good, and for me at least made up for
some of the anger I felt over ‘Disassembled’. Once assembled the new team travels
to the Savage Land, where they face off against Sauron and start to discover
the dark underbelly of S.H.I.E.L.D. David Finch’s art made for a notably
shadier ‘Avengers’ title – helped by key characters speaking off-panel –
without the outright, over-the-top bleakness of ‘Disassembled’. This line-up,
like all of Bendis’ line-ups, would not last for more than a few story-arcs,
but the Avengers were the team from
this point forwards.

Young Avengers #1-6 – ‘Sidekicks’

Writer: Allen Heinberg, Penciller:
Jim Cheung

Hmm, does this count as an ‘Avengers’
book, or as a ‘let’s-put-Avengers-into-the-title-so-it-can-sell’ book? I
remember enjoying it, but I don’t recall much more about it than the Iron Lad
reveal.

A mark of the Avengers’ surge in
relative popularity over the past decade has been that Marvel has tended to
focus most of their company-wide ‘events’ around the team, including ‘House of
M’, ‘Secret Invasion’, ‘Siege’, and the most successful of them: ‘Civil War’. (This
focus on the Avengers for company-wide events may also be because essentially
every major character in the Marvel Universe is an Avenger now – even the X-Men
are Avengers when it suits.) ‘Civil War’ definitely had the most interesting
concept, though one still simple enough that it could well have happened
earlier: Marvel’s superheroes are at ‘war’ each other, due to a split over a
‘Superhuman Registration Act’ which will force the heroes to reveal their
identities and work for the government. One side, led by Iron Man, sees the Act
as the heroes’ only way forward with the government, while the other side, led
by Captain America, resists it. Essentially every superhero is caught in the
fight, across a seven-issue series and numerous tie-in books.

The ‘war’ makes asses out of both
sides. Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and the pro-registration side enlist maniacal
supervillains to boost up their side’s numbers, and create a dumb, vicious
clone of the thought-to-be-dead Thor who proceeds to blow a hole through one of
the heroes’ brains. Captain America meanwhile becomes more holier-than-thou the
longer the series goes on, and gives the eager-to-please Punisher a smack
across the face. No one really comes out of it looking better, but I still
enjoyed it, as the war became a framework for putting the characters into some
new and interesting situations, while remaining mindful of their established
relationships. McNiven’s art, back when he was only starting to get notice, is
up to the challenge of making it feel like a grand-scale event.

For the record I was on Iron Man’s
side, though not for any deep philosophical or political reasons. Maybe it was
because Iron Man was my first favourite superhero as a kid, although I don’t
recall taking his side in the ‘Operation: Galactic Storm’ split. So maybe it
was because I felt the story, for all its impartiality in promotion, was
leading me to take Captain America’s side, and I reacted against that. Or maybe
I just felt that Cap was being the bigger sanctimonious ass.

Probably the best of the numerous ‘Avengers’
tie-in books to major events has been this tie-in to ‘Civil War’, in which Luke
Cage decides he will not register with the government. The decision puts
himself and his family at risk, but with a little help from his friends, Cage
is able to retain his liberty. New Avengers #26Writer: Brian Michael Bendis,
Penciller: Alex MaleevLine-up: Hawkeye, Scarlet WitchOther main characters: Dr. Strange,
Wong

I have been skewered on internet
forums for professing my admiration for this issue, but I still stand behind
it. Hawkeye, who was killed by the Scarlet Witch’s attacks in ‘Avengers
Disassembled’, suddenly wakes up very much alive. He then seeks out Wanda to
find some meaning behind what has happened to him, but finds her with seemingly
no memory of him, the Avengers, or what she has done. Or has she … ? It was the
ambiguity around this point that I thought was well-handled, and made me very
intrigued to find out the answer. As Dr. Strange says to Hawkeye before he sets
out, ‘If you find her, if by some miracle – I doubt what you’ll find will help
you feel better about what’s happened. It may make things worse.’ Again,
despite Hawkeye and Wanda appearing to reconcile – and then some – it is not
clear if Hawkeye’s finding her has been for the best. Also, I love Alex Maleev’s
art, and the models he uses for his characters; perhaps with another artist I
would have found this story as objectionable as others seemed to.

After being one of the main writers
whose style shifted Marvel away from ‘thought balloons’ Brian Michael Bendis
brought them back in a big way for his first story arc for ‘Mighty Avengers’.
But Bendis’ use was more than just a re-hash of the device; the balloons were
fitted into his extensive, rapid-fire dialogue, providing us with the
characters’ internal commentary on what was being said. Seeing panels cluttered
with white word balloons was a breath of retro fresh air amongst all those
modern ‘decompressed’ comic books.The ‘Mighty Avengers’ took place
following the ‘Civil War’, with superheroes now registered and operating across
each of the 50 states, though some heroes (over in the ‘New Avengers’) still
resist. In the first issue Iron Man tasks Ms. Marvel with picking ‘the best
Avengers team possible’ – at least out of the registered heroes – giving us
probably the most entertaining ‘pick the team’ issue of the past decade. The
main threat is a rather-offbeat Ultron; a shiny silver naked woman that is much
more of the silent, mysterious type than the grinning pumpkin-head version. Penciller
Frank Cho, well-known for drawing buxom women, made fanboys’ eyes bug out with
his sexed-up Ultron rendition. However, with heavy-hitters Ms. Marvel, Wonder
Man, Ares, and the Sentry on the roster Cho also gets the chance to draw a
bunch of fun knock-about fights; even still, this Mighty Avengers team end up
enlisting Ant-Man/Henry Pym (sort of) to help them stop his creation. A good
start for the title, which was almost immediately stopped dead in its tracks by
it essentially becoming a ‘Secret Invasion’ tie-in book, following which this
‘best Avengers team possible’ was no more.

Another new direction, another new
team … following the end of Norman Osborn’s ‘Dark Reign’ former Captain America Steve Rogers assembles
a new ‘Avengers’ team to once again be a symbol of all that is good for the
future of humanity. That aside, this was a good return for the team, who after
several years absence now had Thor back in the fold. Kang shows up to tell the
Avengers that they must go into the future to stop Ultron, otherwise they face
an even darker future. Kang himself has tried twenty times, using a different
army each time, and his constant stretching of the time-stream eventually
causes it to snap. Before you know it we have dinosaurs and Martians turning up
in present-day New York, while Thor takes on Galactus. Meanwhile some of the
other Avengers travel in the future to try and convince Ultron to throw a
fight. Bendis and Romita Jr made Ultron seem about as scary and invincible as
he has ever been, and Bendis throws in some nice misdirection about the role of
the future Hulk in all this. Contrary to the bold new direction this it claimed
to usher in the Bendis era kind of petered out after this, but this was a bulky
story with big heroes and villains in it.

Jonathan Hickman’s ‘Avengers’ run has
had its ups and downs, but it got off to an impressive start, as the Avengers expanded
to their biggest line-up ever. The final page of the first issue that shows the
massive new team promised exciting things ahead. This is what I said about the
issue at the time:

“This is the best Avengers I’ve
read in quite some time, probably since Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s alternate
take on the team in ‘The Ultimates’. Jonathan Hickman is a ‘big ideas’ kind of
guy, which makes him well-suited to what is meant to be the biggest, brashest
Marvel title out there. Hickman has even taken the Avengers’ membership to
absurdly large levels, packing almost 20 members into his line-up (I don’t disapprove of this concept, even if I think some of the
choices are a bit weak). Really though, it’s Jerome Opena’s art that has me
most keen about this book. He makes basically everybody he draws look kinda
bad-ass; even douchebags like Sunspot and Sunfire. This is what the premier
super-team in 2013 should be like. Verdict: Four fingers and a thumb.”

Hickman did continue
to be a ‘big ideas’ kind of guy, even if he basically only had the one big
idea. Unfortunately Opena did not stay on the title, and subsequent art did not
always match Hickman’s ambition. Also, some of the ‘douchebags’ became a bit
more ‘douchey’. The first three issues are still good stuff though (and even
the stuff that followed, while not as good, is still worthwhile) … good enough
to get the final spot of my ‘Best Avengers Stories Ever’ list.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

I have been
reading Marvel’s ‘Avengers’ comics for 26 years, which apart from following my
football team, is probably the longest continuous stretch of time that I have
done anything.I once heard
Avengers’ writer Brian Michael Bendis say at a convention just after he had
read through the whole series that there are a lot of bad Avengers comics … but
there are also a lot of good comics. These are what I personally think are the
good ones.In a sense I
tipped my hand as to which stories I thought mattered when I did my ‘pseudo-critical’ history of the
Avengers. But that
was seven years ago now and there has been some notable stories since then.So across
five posts spanning each of the Avengers’ five decades of publication, here are
what I think are the best Avengers stories.Part One (1963-1973) was here.

Following Roger Stern’s departure as
writer ‘Avengers’ had several short-term scribes until X-Men editor Bob Harras
came on board. Harras debuted on the title with ‘The Collection Obsession’ in
#334-339, which turned out to be an OK story, but his run really got going with
the introduction of the Gatherers in issue #343. Led by the mysterious Proctor
the Gatherers were survivors of alternate Earths that menaced the Avengers on
and off for three years. Even when not present their threat often seemed to
lurk in the background, particularly since it intersected with another main
subplot at the time, which was the Avenger Sersi seemingly becoming violently
unhinged.The Gatherers storyline also
contained some early work by top artist Steve Epting, who at this stage was
noticeably improving with each issue. Together Harras and Epting mixed the soap
opera of Englehart’s run with the dark grandeur of the Thomas/Buscema issues.
It may have owed a large debt to those past Avengers stories, but it was an
oasis amongst a decade of mediocrity. However don’t read it if you can’t stand
the Black Knight.Avengers #345-347 – ‘Operation: Galactic Storm’Writer: Bob Harras, Penciller: Steve
EptingLine-up: Captain America, Iron Man,
Thor II, Quasar, Wonder Man, Black Knight, Sersi, Crystal, Hercules, Captain
Marvel II, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye/Goliath II, Starfox, Living Lightning, US
Agent, Falcon, Henry Pym, Wasp, She-Hulk, Mockingbird, Gilgamesh.Main villains: Supreme Intelligence,
Ronan the Accuser, Deathbird, Starforce, Ael-Dann, Dar-BennOther main characters: Lilandra,
Shi’ar Imperial Guard, Doctor Corbeau

‘Operation: Galactic Storm’, or the
Kree-Shi’ar War, was a huge nineteen-part crossover that ran through all the
‘Avengers’ related titles for three months. You could do a lot worse than to
read the whole thing, but the three ‘Avengers’ issues are the most significant.
A couple of these issues in particular highlight the moral conflicts that would
be a major theme of Harras’ run. Issue #345 has four of the Avengers take on a hostile
Shi’ar ship, with Sersi threatening to kill the entire crew if they do not stop
their attack. Issue #346 takes place on the cold and uninviting Kree homeworld,
where the regular Avengers team must decide how to deal with an assassination
attempt. (It also contains the first appearance of the ‘Avenger jackets’, which
became a bit of a running joke about the era.) The big one though is issue
#347, in which one of the warring empires is utterly destroyed, and the
Avengers are split as to whether they punish the party responsible. Iron Man
leads one faction, while Captain America heads the other, a precursor to the Marvel-wide
‘Civil War’ event some fifteen years later. In the end this particular split
harmed the team more in the short-term than in the long-term, but it still made
for a more interesting conflict than your average crossover event.

Avengers #348 – ‘Familial Connections’

Writer: Bob Harras, Penciller: Kirk
Jarvinen

Line-up: Vision, Crystal, Black
Knight, Hercules, Black Widow

Other main characters: Professor
Miles Lipton, Laura Lipton

Writer Bob Harras was on a bit of a
roll from issues #343 to #350, and one of the standout issues was issue #348
which focused on the Vision. After John Byrne’s ‘Vision Quest’, in which the
Vision had been torn apart and reconstructed, he had gone significantly
backwards in terms of his abilities to deal with human emotions. In issue #348
he regains some of that ability in an unusual and touching way.

The wife of the man on whose the
Vision’s post-reconstruction brain patterns were based comes to Avengers
Mansion to ask the Vision to visit her dying father-in-law. Once there the
Professor explains that he wants to test a program on the Vision that will
temporarily embed his son’s personality on to the Vision’s own. After some
prodding from fellow Avenger the Vision agrees, allowing the Professor to talk
to his ‘son’ one last time. Seeing the Vision’s android face take on the
countenance of the enthusiastic son is a little strange, but the sequence goes
beyond mere mimicry. The ending of the issue, in which we once again see an
android cry, suggests that the Vision may be on the path to further re-gaining
his human side.

‘Heroes Reborn’, in which the Avengers
were one of several long-term Marvel properties loaned out to Image creators
Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, may have sold a lot, but it was generally a critical
failure. A year on it was up to long-time Avengers fan Kurt Busiek and
returning artist George Perez to pick up the pieces, and try and return the Avengers
to their former glory. And that they did, creating one of the most
well-regarded ‘Avengers’ runs. Perez’s massive amount of detail was on full
display in their first story ‘The Morgan Conquest’, as he first re-introduced
and then re-designed 39 different Avengers. In this story Morgan Le Fey from
Arthurian legend remakes present-day reality into a version of medieval
England, and the Avengers are recast as her own personal guard. Captain America
and Hawkeye break through the effects of the spell though, and it is up to them
to try and snap the other Avengers back to reality. That is not easy though
when some of the heavy-hitters are caught deep in Morgan’s spell. One of the
best ever ‘Avengers’ writers, Busiek starts off his five-year run exploring
what it means to be an Avenger, and though it is a bit corny in parts it
returned the Avengers in grand style.

Avengers Vol. 3 #4 – ‘Too Many Avengers’

Writer: Kurt Busiek, Penciller:
George Perez

Line-up: Too many Avengers

Main villains: Whirlwind

Other main characters: Edwin Jarvis,
Duane Freeman

There are heaps of ‘picking the new
team’ stories in Avengers’ history, dating back to issue #16 in 1965, but this
is probably the best of them. All of the Avengers from ‘The Morgan Conquest’
are still hanging around, leading to a highly unworkable roster. It is up to
the founders to whittle the candidates down. Plenty is happening around the
team being picked though, with the Scarlet Witch worried about the injured
Vision, Carol Danvers gaining a new name and showing signs of alcohol problems,
and Hawkeye pushing the cause of young non-Avengers Justice and Firestar. The
new roster did not last long – two members were gone within half a year – but
this issue kept the momentum going from ‘The Morgan Conquest’ in bringing back
some of the old enjoyment of the series.Avengers Forever #1-12Writers: Kurt Busiek and Roger Stern,
Penciller: Carlos PachecoLine-up: Captain America, Hawkeye,
Yellowjacket (past), Giant-Man, Wasp (present), Songbird, Captain Marvel
(future), and other Avengers from multiple realitiesMain villains: Immortus, Kang,
Supreme Intelligence, the Time Keepers, Space Phantoms, TerminatrixOther main characters: Rick Jones,
LibraReviews: Comic Book Resources, The M0vie Blog, Open Letters Monthly, PopMatters, The Weekly Crisis, Weekly Comic Book Review

Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco’s twelve-part
‘Avengers Forever’ series seemed intended to be the ultimate ‘Avengers’
time-travel story. Seven Avengers drawn from the team’s past, present, and
future work together to battle long-time Avengers foe Immortus across several
different eras. It is not the most exciting line-up – Cap, Hawkeye, two Hank
Pyms and the Wasp, and Songbird (?) and the son of Captain Marvel – but most
readers will grow attached to this team by the series’ end. Also thrown into
the mix is Immortus’ past self, Kang the Conqueror, who is fighting against his
destiny to transform from conquering warlord to boring scholar. Rick Jones and
the Supreme Intelligence feature heavily as well, and for once neither comes
off as wholly annoying.

Busiek’s knowledge and use of
‘Avengers’ history in this series is extensive – some might say almost too
extensive – with references tucked into the back of each issue to help readers
understand the background to events. A lot of vague and hanging plot threads
from years back were resolved. Basically when something weird went on or was
left unanswered it was all part of Immortus’ plans, though arguably Busiek gave
some of those stories (eg ‘The Crossing’) a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card. Given
its reliance on past ‘Avengers’ stories this may not be for everybody, but
anyone who has an appreciation for the team’s history will find a rich and
varied tale here.

After trying to create the ultimate
‘Kang/Immortus’ story, Kurt Busiek set his sights with George Perez on trying
to create the ultimate story for the Avengers’ other major foe the robot
Ultron. Here he was even more successful, with Ultron becoming more evil and
dangerous than ever. In ‘Ultron Unlimited’ he plans to recast the human race in
his image, using his ‘family’: his creator Henry Pym, ex-wife the Wasp, his
‘son’ the Vision, Wonder Man, the Scarlet Witch, and Wonder Man’s brother the
Grim Reaper as the prototypes. As an opening gambit, Ultron slaughters an
entire (fictional) nation of people, and sends out a chilling TV message to the
world while standing atop a mountain of human bodies. The Avengers team up with
the US forces to trudge their way through Ultron’s forces and rescue their
teammates, but not before running into a nasty surprise regarding the extent of
his power.

Speaking of nasty surprises, Henry
Pym reveals a dark secret about Ultron’s creation that puts a very clever twist
on both characters and yet is so simple that you wonder how no-one made the
connection before. The revelation makes his final battle with Ultron all the
more intense, and this battle (rather than the more famous scene of Thor saying
‘Ultron, we would have words with thee’) is actually my favourite moment of the
story. On publication some readers immediately claimed this as the best
‘Avengers’ story ever – while ‘Under Siege’ still tops my list this is right up
there among the very best.

Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s last
story together ‘The Nefaria Protocols’ brought back Count Nefaria in a
cross-over with villains-turned-heroes the Thunderbolts. The first issue in the
story (#31) is actually the best one, as the Vision, who has been on leave from
the team for half a dozen issues, uses his Victor Shade alter ego to do some
detective work into the underworld. After that the story delves a fair bit into
explanation as Busiek again resolves some old plot threads that probably don’t
deserve the care he takes with them. Nefaria’s daughter Madame Masque makes a
good secondary threat/ally, and revisits her connection with Iron Man/Tony
Stark. The double-sized finale issue #34 is a fine send-off for Perez, playing
to his strengths by having two teams of heroes going at it with the ultra-powered
Nefaria. It’s not quite as strong as the Shooter/Byrne Nefaria tale, but ‘The
Nefaria Protocols’ is a satisfactory conclusion to one of the top three
‘Avengers’ runs.

Here I have grouped together three
issues that stood out for me in the pre-Bendis/pre-franchise years (which I
will cover in the final part).

Issue #38 is not a complete story,
but I have included it because at the time it gave the Avengers an extremely
promising new direction. Captain America and the Wasp re-organised the team to
be more proactive and take down threats before they show up and cause bigger
trouble. It was a very modern take on the team without sacrificing the
Avengers’ ideals, and could have carried the team through several years’ worth
of stories. Unfortunately Kang showed up and all the Avengers’ efforts became
focused on him, and while ‘The Kang Dynasty’ was by no means a bad story it did
halt the momentum this issue had built up. What a shame … but at least I can
imagine in an alternate universe what types of stories this issue lead to.

Knowledgeable readers may be
surprised that I have included almost every Avengers’ Kang story on this list,
but omitted what many consider the best of them: ‘The Kang Dynasty’, in which
the time-traveller conquers present-day Earth. I remember reading the issues as
they were released – the story dragged, and the artists kept changing every few
issues. Issue #51, which deals with the Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man caught in
one of Kang’s prison camps, is a highlight though. The Scarlet Witch had long
been married to the Vision before he was dismantled and reconstructed, and in
his first incarnation his brain patterns had been based on those of Simon
Williams AKA Wonder Man. Hence, there was an argument that Wanda had fallen in
love with Simon as well as the Vision, and the tension heightened even more when
she used her powers to bring him back from the ‘dead’. This story plays on and
resolves that tension, all against the backdrop of the two having to comfort
each other and work together to escape their prison. Some of the events in ‘The
Kang Dynasty’ felt over the top, but the extreme scenario worked well here in
bringing out the deep connections between these two characters.

Geoff Johns’ ongoing Ant-Man/Jack of
Hearts conflict seemed forced to say the least, the kind of juvenile dispute
that was created just to have some arguments between the characters. However it
did give Johns the best issue of his run, issue #62, and the follow up in
Johns’ last issue, #76, was not bad either. Scott Lang (Ant-Man) battles for
custody of his daughter, while the Jack of Hearts deals with the interminable
solitude of being locked in a reinforced chamber for hours each day to prevent
his own powers from destroying him. Johns draws some nice parallels between the
pair, and makes them far more sympathetic than the complete jerks they were for
most of his run.

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s ‘The Ultimates’
is close to the greatest ‘Avengers’ story ever told … if one can even consider
it an ‘Avengers’ story. Millar and Hitch re-cast the early Avengers as
super-powered weapons for S.H.I.E.L.D. Millar carefully chose the elements of
these characters he wanted to use from across their forty years of history (eg
Giant-Man and Wasp’s domestic problems), but also changed some elements as
well. Captain America’s ‘boy scout’ attitude is stripped away, leaving a
tough-as-nails soldier. Thor is a social activist with a cult of hippies who
may have deluded himself that he is the God of Thunder. Hawkeye and Black Widow
lead the Ultimates’ Shadow Team that does the dirty stuff that the headlines
cannot get involved in. Iron Man, Giant-Man, the Wasp, the Hulk round out the
original line-up, later joined by a closer-than-usual Quicksilver and the
Scarlet Witch.

‘The Ultimates’ was basically
Marvel’s try-out for an ‘Avengers’ movie. Contributing to the Hollywood
blockbuster feel was Bryan Hitch’s art, with Hitch having helped to popularize
the widescreen style of comics. Full-page panels and double-page spreads
abound, with even an eight-page spread showing up in the second volume. Hitch’s
photo-realist style made the characters looked like celebrities, most notably
in Nick Fury’s case where he was based on actor Samuel L. Jackson before
Jackson actually portrayed him.

The first volume of the Ultimates has
the team first take on the Hulk, reflecting that in their early days the
Avengers often just fought each other. Next up is the Chitauri, that is, the
alien race that would turn up in the Avengers movie, who have a connection to
Captain America’s past. The second series takes up the theme of American
imperialism as the Ultimates face Loki and a team called the Liberators that
are none too happy with America having access to a team of super-powered
weapons. Our ‘heroes’ are insecure, irrational, harsh, egotistic, and possibly
the best version of the Avengers we have seen to date.